Glossary

Issue

Many SAP standard reports commonly used for Tax Reporting purposes in SAP ECC have run out of SAP support and have been replaced with reports in the Document and Reporting Compliance (DRC) framework available in S/4 HANA. The usage of SAP DRC in S/4 HANA has implications on licensing requirements as well as other project considerations such as training needs and business process change and shall therefore be assessed further as part of this KDD.

Recommendation

To ensure continuity of regulatory compliance in S/4 HANA for statutory submissions and to provide the users with a powerful, intuitive and state-of-the-art tax reporting frameworks, a move towards SAP DRC seems inevitable. Sticking to an obsolete and outdated tax reporting framework which has already reached or is nearing the end of their lives from a SAP support and product development perspective in a new S/4 HANA implementation is heavily contradicting the idea of building a future-proof solution.

Background & Context

Explain the context in which the decision is being made.

SAP DRC in S/4 HANA for statutory reporting purposes is a powerful tool that facilitates monitoring, preparation and submission of numerous statutory reports to government and fiscal authorities but many of its functionalities require additional licensing.

Syensqo is currently using various tax applications for compliance, reporting and lodging purposes. While some of these applications allow for seamless integration with SAP as the source system for regulatory filings and reporting, the business is still relying on supporting reports from the underlying SAP transactional accounting system especially in countries where no automated or only semi-automated solutions are in place for tax reporting and submissions. In a growing number of countries around the world it is nowadays also a legal requirement to integrate the accounting system with government portals for direct submissions of statutory filings to the authorities (e.g. 'Make Tax Digital' initiative in the UK for indirect tax submissions).

The following list shows a non-exhaustive selection of commonly used SAP standard reports for tax reporting in ECC systems for which SAP support and further product developments to keep the reports up-to-date with latest changes in regulatory requirements has either ceased or is about to reach this stage in the near future - for a full list of no longer supported standard SAP reports for regulatory and statutory reporting and submissions, please refer to SAP note 2480067:

Assumptions

Clearly describe the underlying assumptions which informed or limited the choices available, or impacted the decision: cost, schedule, regulatory requirements, business drivers, country footprint, technology, etc. Include links as necessary. This section is important because a future change in circumstances might invalidate some key assumptions, which then prompts a decision to be revisited. 

Constraints

Capture any constraints or limitations inherent to the recommended option. This could be aspects which, if changed or removed in future, could cause the decision to be revisited or invalidated. For example, a constraint might be that a new product has significant gaps in important functionality, which caused an older alternative to be recommended. If those gaps are closed in future, this might cause the decision to be invalidated.

Impacts

Describe the impact of the decision on other aspects such as other processes, infrastructure, other SAP modules or systems, data cleansing and migration, developments, automations, interfaces, in-flight projects, etc.

Business Rules

The decision may translate into business rules which enforce the decision and will require configuration. List these business rules here. For example, "An Outline Agreement cannot be created via the RFQ process. An awarded RFQ can only result in a Purchase Order". 

None identified in conceptual design phase - this section may be revisited again during detailed design as underlying business processes leveraging tax reporting functionalities are investigated in more detail.

Options considered

List the options (viable options or alternatives) you considered. These often require a longer explanation with diagrams, or references to other documents (links are best, but attachments are also possible). Use enough detail to adequately explain what you considered so that a project or business stakeholder reviewing this decision will not come back and ask "did you think about...?"; this leads to loss of credibility and questioning of other decisions. This section also helps ensure that you considered enough suitable alternatives rather than just copy/pasting SAP's recommendations.

Option A: Deploy and Utilize SAP DRC in S/4 HANA for Statutory Reporting

Decribe the option in sufficient detail for a reader familiar with the subject matter to understand it properly

Option B: Use classic Tax Reporting framework instead of SAP DRC in S/4 HANA for Statutory Reporting

Decribe the option in sufficient detail for a reader familiar with the subject matter to understand it properly

Evaluation

Outline why you selected a position. The best format could be a pro/con table (sample below), but is up to you as the author. You must consider complexity, feasibility, cost/effort to implement, but also ongoing operational impact and cost. You must consider the program principles and explain any deviations in detail. This is probably as important as the decision itself.

	Option A	Option B	Option C	Option D
Criterion 1	Pro Con	Pro Pro	Pro Con	Pro Con
Criterion 2	Pro Con	Con	Pro Pro	Con Con
Criterion 3	Pro	Con	Con	Pro

See also

Insert links and references to other documents which are relevant when trying to understand this decision and its implications. Other decisions are often impacted, so it's good to list them here with links. Attachments are also possible but dangerous as they are static documents and not updated by their authors.

Change log

Workflow history